The Kirkuk Criminal Court issued a prison sentence for two officers of the Kirkuk Police General Directorate on charges of receiving bribes.
According to two sources to (KirkukNow), the verdict was issued this week, after it was proven that the two officers were “involved” in taking bribes from a citizen in exchange for covering up a case.
One of the sources, who is affiliated with the Kirkuk Police General Directorate, anonymously told (KirkukNow), "One of the two convicted officers is the director of the crime prevention department at Azadi police station with the rank of major. He was sentenced to three years in prison."
The other officer, also a major, was sentenced to six years in prison.
Another source in the General Directorate of Kirkuk Police said on the condition of anonymity, "The two officers were involved in a case of receiving bribes, and their case was exposed after a citizen filed a complaint against them, accusing them of covering up a case."
The source explained that the two convicted officers "covered up a case in exchange for receiving a bribe."
"In addition to their prison sentences, the two officers were excluded from service, according to the court's decision," one of the sources.
Regarding the case, (KirkukNow) correspondents tried today, Monday 8 August, to contact a number of police officials, but no one responded.
Kirkuk, located 238 kilometers north of Baghdad, is an ethnically mixed province for 1.7 million Kurds, Sunni and Shiite Arabs, and Turkmen. It has long been at the center of disputed territories between Baghdad and Erbil.
Kirkuk is one of the main disputed territories in addition to Diyalah and Nineveh, that a three-stage process was outlined in Article 140 of the Iraqi constitution in 2005 to put an end to the disputes over these areas between the Kurdistan Region Government KRG and Federal Iraqi government dispute, through normalization, population census and a referendum on the status of the territories.
Currently, the Iraqi army, local and federal police, Brigade 61 of Special Forces along with Shiite paramilitary of Popular Mobilization Forces PMF, are under Kirkuk joint operations’ command, an umbrella for the security forces running the security of Kirkuk province.
